Is Sally Yates A Hero or a Villain?

Acting Attorney General Sally Yates was fired by President Donald Trump because she instructed the Justice Department lawyers not to defend Trump's Executive Order regarding travel to the U.S. by people from certain Muslim countries. She is neither a hero, nor a villain. She made an honest mistake when she instructed the entire Justice Department not to defend President Trump's wrong-headed executive order on immigration. The reasons she gave in her letter referred to matters beyond the scope of the attorney general. She criticized the order on policy grounds and said that it was not "right." She also referred to its possibly unconstitutionality and unlawful. Had she stuck to the latter two criteria she would have been on more solid ground, although perhaps wrong on the merits. But by interjecting issues of policy and directing the Justice Department not to defend any aspect of the order, she overstepped her bounds.

Former U.S. Acting Attorney General Sally Yates (left), and President Donald Trump. (Images source: Wikimedia Commons)

An Attorney General, like any citizen, has the right to disagree with a presidential order, but unless it is clear that the order is unlawful, she has no authority to order the Justice Department to refuse to enforce it. This order is multi-faceted and complex. It raises serious constitutional and legal issues that deserved nuanced and calibrated consideration from the nation's highest law officer. There are significant differences between the constitutional status of green card holders on the one hand, and potential visitors from another country who are seeking visas. Moreover, there are statutory issues in addition to constitutional ones. A blanket order to refuse to defend any part of the statute is overkill. If she strongly disagreed with the policies underlying the Order, she should have resigned in protest, and left it to others within the Justice Department to defend those parts of the Order that are legally defensible.

I, too, disagree, with the policy underlying the order, but I don't immediately assume that any policy with which I disagree is automatically unconstitutional or unlawful.

The President has considerable constitutional authority to control entry into the United States by non-citizens and non-residents. Congress, too, has some degree of control over our borders. The precise relationship between presidential and congressional power has never been defined by the Supreme Court. A more responsible Attorney General would seek to analyze these complex issues before jumping into the political fire by a blanket refusal to defend any part of the order.

In addition to failing to do her duty as Attorney General, Sally Yates handed President Trump an underserved political victory. She gave him the power to control the situation by firing her, instead of herself maintaining control by resigning in protest. It is the President who emerges from this unnecessary confrontation with the undeserved status of hero among his constituents.

I do not know Sally Yates except by reputation. She is highly regarded as a career prosecutor and public servant. My criticism of her is not personal, but rather institutional. These are dangerous and delicate times, and anyone who wants to confront the newly elected president must do so with wisdom, nuance and calibration. She played directly into his hands by responding to an overbroad order with an overbroad response. President Trump has now appointed a new acting Attorney General who will defend the order, or at least those parts of it that are legally defensible. Any individual Justice Department official who feels uncomfortable defending this controversial order should be given the freedom by the Department to decline to participate in the case. There are plenty of good lawyers in the Department who would have no hesitation standing up in the courtroom and making the best ethically permissible argument in defense of the order. I have had many experiences with Justice Department lawyers who personally disagreed with the prosecutorial decision in particular cases, but who vigorously defended the government's position.

Sally Yates did what she thought was right. In my view she was wrong. She should neither be lionized nor accused of betrayal. Nor should President Trump's critics, and I include myself among them, accuse him of doing anything even remotely close to President Nixon's infamous "Saturday night massacre." Nixon fired the very officials who were seeking to prosecute him. That constituted a personal and unethical conflict of interest. President Trump fired Yates over policy differences. It may have been unwise for him to do so, but it was clearly within his authority.

Now we will see our adversarial system at work. Excellent and dedicated lawyers will continue to bring challenges throughout the country against this ill-advised executive order. Other excellent lawyers will defend the order vigorously in court. Ultimately the issue may come to the Supreme Court (with or without a full complement of Justices). That is the way our system of checks and balances is supposed to work.

Alan M. Dershowitz, Felix Frankfurter Professor of Law, Emeritus, is the author of Taking the Stand: My Life in the Law and Electile Dysfunction. A version of this article appeared in The Hill.

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44 Reader Comments

Cathrine Brougham • Feb 4, 2017 at 23:05

I thought the article was a good piece of logic and a timely reminder about the difference between a personal decision or a work one. I thought it unethical to go against an executive order coming from the President as we are to respect authority (not necessarily agree with it) and it is the highest office in the land.

An Acting Attorney General is a big responsibility and Sally Yates would have had the intelligence and the experience to be in that position so it does seem to suggest that she did not think it through and this was something personal to her.

It certainly doesn't make her a villain but one would think seriously about hiring her into any top job in the future. I think she has shoot herself in the foot.

On a personal note I am impressed that President Donald Trump has at least had the gumption to try to redress some very critical problems that most of the northern part of the world is experiencing. He is trying to put plans into actions instead of the lame duck approaches that has made a great country like America almost redundant. We should be praying for this President to stay true and loyal and to have the best possible advisers around him at such a crucial time in our history.

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Howard Joffe • Feb 2, 2017 at 15:23

Sally Yates can be admired on the one hand for not being a YES-WOMAN. She erred in giving an instruction to ignore The President. She ought to have told Trump that she could not enforce his instruction and would resign as a consequence. Her position as Acting Attorney General is clear - Trump had given her a task but not a responsibility. She failed doing the task.

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Merrill Galer • Feb 2, 2017 at 11:00

Yates, like most of Obama's appointees, is an ideological political activist, who does not see her role as servant to the American people but only to promote the leftist agenda. She serves at the pleasure of the President Trump (who should have dismissed her day one) and he was legally correct in firing her.

Merrill

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linda goudsmit • Feb 2, 2017 at 07:06

Alan Dershowitz needs to retract his statement that Sally Yates made an "honest" mistake when she defied President Trump and instructed her staff not to defend his immigration order. Sally Yates is neither hero nor villain - she is an arrogant self-righteous leftover from Obama's politicized Justice Department under Eric Holder and Loretta Lynch that regularly chose to ignore the law to advance Obama's political agenda.

America is a country of laws and Barack Obama was a lawless president who politicized every government office and promoted legislating from the bench. Dershowitz discredits himself when he tries to defend the indefensible. Lawlessness is not an honest mistake - it is a strategy - the deliberate attempt to defy the rules of law and create social chaos.

Obama/Clinton were students of Saul Alinsky and Dershowitz should recognize the implementation of Alinsky's Rules for Radicals during Obama's entire 8 year tenure. Obama's sycophants consider defying the law an act of defiance or "resistance" - they pride themselves on their "courage" to resist. What they do not realize is that Obama's hope for America was to weaken America, transform it into a socialist state, and prepare it for Obama's globalist dream of one-world government.

One-world government is not the world of "social justice" that it is pitched as - it is the biggest bait-and-switch con perpetrated on the America public. One-world government is the globalist elite's sinister self-serving answer to the Malthusian problem of Earth's resources not being able to sustain the population growth. One-world government is a binary socio-political system with a small ruling elite and an enslaved population that serves them.

There is no middle class, no upward mobility, no national sovereignty, and no individual rights. One-world government is a dreamscape for the ruling elite but a dystopian nightmare for everyone else. One-world government is described in excruciating detail by Bertrand Russell in his 1952 book The Impact of Science on Society.

Donald Trump is the existential threat to one-world government because he believes in AMERICANISM not globalism. Left-wing liberals like Sally Yates who are mindlessly following Obama's ongoing message to disrupt and delegitimize Donald Trump, and left-wing liberal apologists like Dershowitz should take a pause and read Bertrand Russell. Donald Trump is not the enemy of freedom - globalism's one-world government is.

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Gary Miller • Feb 2, 2017 at 06:00

I don't understand the claim that the order is unconstitutional. When did the limitation of what the government can do to citizens get extended to non-citizens? That is a fabrication of a non-existent "right" out of whole cloth. Gorsuch is the right man to fill the vacant court seat, because liberal thinking is a destructive force on the very structure of this country.

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Russell • Feb 2, 2017 at 05:59

The President has every right to issue an order to close the borders if he deems there to be a threat. After the terrorist attacks of the last few years and the example of Muslim immigration to Europe and the self confessed intention to conquer Europe and the USA for Islam by all the Islamic leaders, Trump is not ill advised at all, the Europeans are stupid for not doing the same. Try to enter a Muslim country or an Asian country as a "refugee" and see what happens.

Alan you normally have some sound logic but have offered no sensible reason why she had any right to even object on legal grounds. The laws are already there and have just been ignored by the previous President and his minions.

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Stan Lee • Feb 2, 2017 at 03:22

It should not matter what Yates made of herself, but it does. She was a leftover from the Obama regime and given the temporary task of acting as the Attorney General She's an experienced attorney, had to know darned well what her mission should have been under her temporary designation.She decided against her federal mission, obviously to "grease the skids" for an increase of recognition in the Democrat Party and its affiliates.Insubordination to her mission got her an exit from federal employment as an attorney and she also got the recognition for her partisanship to the Democrat Party. Private practice will definitely keep her out of the soup line.

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Dajjal • Feb 2, 2017 at 03:04

Unlike Alan M. Dershowitz, I am not a lawyer. In my view, the Immigration Act of 1952 empowers President Trump to exclude classes of persons bearing inimical and subversive ideologies, including Islam.

When someone is trying to enter your home illegally with intent to harm you, locking the front door is insufficient; you must secure all points of entry.

Muslims were, prior to '01, obligated fard Kifaya, to punish us for not being Muslims. Subsequent to the invasion of Afghanistan, the obligation is fard ayn: individually binding on all Muslims regardless of age, gender or nationality. ["The Book Of Jihad", chapter on Fard and Reliance Of The Traveller" O9.1]

Barring Muslims from seven nations is necessary and insufficient. The ban must be global, permanent and retroactive to be of any real use.

All Muslims are obligated to attack us. Some will, others won't; thee is no way of determining which will before they act. National origin is irrelevant. The threat will never end so long as Muslims believe Islam. The number of enemy cmbatants already present is more than sufficient.

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Robert Towns-Wilson • Feb 2, 2017 at 02:24

As a lawyer who respects the oath of a Government sworn official, I support the removal of any official who refuses to obey and keep their responsibility to honor their oath of office.

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Elisheva • Feb 2, 2017 at 02:15

I understand former President Obama had similar executive orders and there was no opposition or comments about it. What President Trump did has been done before and never criticized. He is doing the things he promised when he campaigned. The Media are just so anti-Trump that it is ridiculous.

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Rob Manzoni • Feb 2, 2017 at 02:11

Who knows who actually wrote the memo...?

I agree that the word "betrayed" seems inappropriate, but she was also out of line writing the memo ordering the federal employees NOT to comply with the presidential decree. This was not within her power.

Disagreeing with Trump's order is one thing (her appointment interview made her honest stance quite clear), but the correct action would have been to resign, AFTER confronting the White House with her crisis of conscience; and being rebuffed.

Writing an order countermanding the presidential order was an act of defiance - even betrayal - of her position.

This whole "spontaneous" outrage and protest on such a wide scale is a clear sign of some form of central, anti-American plan by sinister forces on the "Left".

THIS - like Ms Yates' countermand of Trump's order - is the true betrayal of the country; and follows eight years of betrayal at the highest level - a truth which has yet to hit home at Real America.

The president and State Department will be shown in the near future, to have been following an agenda which future generations of honest philosophers and historians, will describe as the most outrageous anti-democratic movement in the history of the Land Of The Free...

There's a strong possibility - the probability, I believe - that Obama, both Clintons and many on the so-called "Left" will be called to answer for their deeds; and hopefully will be incarcerated, when the truth of their intentions becomes clear to the world.

This includes the Media, most of which have displayed a conscious dishonest bias, which amounts to a deliberate conspiracy against the Truth; and for which they should be made to pay in the most severe manner. The courts must investigate- and prosecute ALL instances of deliberate untruth, by those who have abused their power to persuade a largely-ignorant, trusting public...

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Don • Feb 1, 2017 at 23:40

If I remember correctly they serve at the pleasure of the president. If any cabinet member doesn't follow the will of the president he can ask for their resignation as does the acting AG.

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UNCLE VLADDI • Feb 1, 2017 at 21:41

In 2011, Obama quietly temporarily restricted all travel to the US from Iraq, Iran, Syria, Sudan, Somalia, and Yemen. Liberals were silent.

In 2017, Trump temporarily restricted all travel to the US from Iraq, Iran, Syria, Sudan, Somalia, and Yemen. Liberals went ballistic.

Yet in both cases, the presidents had full, pre-existing legal authority to restrict the entry of any and all non-citizens to the USA:

U.S. Code § 1182 - Inadmissible aliens:

(f) Suspension of entry or imposition of restrictions by President:

"Whenever the President finds that the entry of any aliens or of any class of aliens into the United States would be detrimental to the interests of the United States, he may by proclamation, and for such period as he shall deem necessary, suspend the entry of all aliens or any class of aliens as immigrants or nonimmigrants, or impose on the entry of aliens any restrictions he may deem to be appropriate."

... a law which has been on the books since at least the 1950s.

For the acting AG to refuse to enforce this law, or to appeal it's being ignored by an ignorant Obama-appointed "judge," was indeed an act of sedition.

She was acting as a villain, and as such, should obviously now be charged with insubordination and SEDITION.

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Dajjal UNCLE VLADDI • Feb 2, 2017 at 03:16

Yates's malfeasance does not meet the violence test of 18 U.S. Code § 2384 so it isn't seditious. Above and beyond that, I agree with your arguments.

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UNCLE VLADDI Dajjal • Feb 2, 2017 at 22:59

I believe treason is constitutionally currently limited to various forms of violence, but sedition is simply to undermine the government's authority. Refusing to stop bringing in potentially and even probably VIOLENT enemies (i.e: Muslims) is obviously sedition. No borders = no country.

Let's check the wording in 18 U.S. Code § 2384 itself:

"If two or more persons in any State or Territory, or in any place subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, conspire to overthrow, put down, or to destroy by force the Government of the United States, or to levy war against them, or to oppose by force the authority thereof, or by force to prevent, hinder, or delay the execution of any law of the United States, or by force to seize, take, or possess any property of the United States contrary to the authority thereof, they shall each be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than twenty years, or both."

Let's have a look at the first bit: ""If two or more persons in any State or Territory, or in any place subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, conspire to overthrow, put down, or to destroy by force the Government of the United States" (etc).

The term "Overthrow" (isn't prefaced by the word "violently") nor is "put down."

To "prevent, hinder, or delay the execution of any law of the United States" is prefaced by the words "by force" but does that mean "violent" force, while ignoring that it can (and in this case, was) done by "force" or, more specifically, "under color" of law?

Shouldn't any and all members of the DOJ who say "Don't enforce these laws!" be automatically presumed, in a prima-facie manner at least, guilty of attempted sedition?!

;-)

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Dajjal UNCLE VLADDI • Feb 3, 2017 at 23:41

"conspire to overthrow, put down, or to destroy by force the Government of the United States"

The subordinate adverbial clause applies to the entire list 'cuz the list members are joined by a conjunction. Note that the clause beginns with "conspire to": Yates acted alone, there was no conspiracy.

Hers was a personal decision to be guilty of nonfeasance, abandoning an essential duty of her office.

It's advocating and endorsing treason towards a specific government. And it can be done with lies, not necessarily physical violence.

As you yourself pointed out:

Sedition = "to prevent, hinder, or delay the execution of any law of the United States!"

18 U.S. Code § 2384 itself:

"If two or more persons in any State or Territory, or in any place subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, conspire to overthrow, put down, or to destroy by force the Government of the United States, or to levy war against them, or to oppose by force the authority thereof, or by force to prevent, hinder, or delay the execution of any law of the United States, or by force to seize, take, or possess any property of the United States contrary to the authority thereof, they shall each be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than twenty years, or both."

Not to mention"by force!" YES, so the law was written by shortsighted retards, as so many of our laws were!

Note "Treason" itself has to be "in war" - as if selling the country off to one's enemies in peacetime is A-OK!

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Dajjal UNCLE VLADDI • Feb 6, 2017 at 19:07

Since Jesus ascended, there is no perfection in this world. Our founders, being students of the Enlightenment, knew about human fallibility & foibles so they gave us a republican form of government with specified and limited powers.

They could not, in the 18th century, foresee the changes that would evolve over the next two centuries. In this system, consensus is involved: no single individual, wise or foolish, dictates the laws. The process of arriving at consensus tends towards the lowest common denominator, not towards perfection. But imperfect as it is, our system is still superior to the alternatives!

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Podargus • Feb 1, 2017 at 20:37

Why is this particular executive order "ill-advised"?I am Australian so I'm standing outside all this hullabaloo.A national government has the responsibility to control the borders. That is a responsibility to the citizens of the nation,not to those who wish to enter that nation for whatever reason.From what I've read the order doesn't go near far enough. Hopefully that will be remedied in the near future.

It has been astonishing and sometimes amusing to hear of all the hysteria surrounding the election of Donald Trump. It has been going on during the campaign and doesn't seem to have abated much. The hysteria hasn't been confined to the US. It afflicts many of the PC Pixie class here in Australia and in Europe. In many cases self interest reigns supreme.

Well, little darlings, Trump was legally elected. He has many supporters. Get over it and get on with your lives.

As for Yates,an Obama appointee and obviously out of her depth,she deserved the sack. Get over it Mr Dershowitz.

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Ray Kosanke • Feb 1, 2017 at 20:30

Nothing's been done for 8 years to stop the flow of illegals into this country from no matter where. Action was needed. To wait for a gaggle of lawyers to come up with a totally correct policy decision loaded with all the right legalese would have simply dragged on the problem. AD could have made his case without the looking-down-his-nose comments that he too disagreed with Trump.

I agree with AD's clarity on Sally Yates' action but not his expressed attitude toward Trump.

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Trev Adams Ray Kosanke • Feb 2, 2017 at 07:24

A lot of news media have trumpeted the above parable as being the "right" way to handle the refugee problem and I totally agree with them. However, they also say we should bring them into our countries to assist them. This is not what the parable says because verse 34 states,"So he went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine; and he set him on his own animal, brought him to an inn and took care of him." Nowhere does it say, he took him into his own home and that is exactly what we have done with the refugees. Paid enormous amounts of money for their welfare and supplied for their needs. Where are the nations of the same culture, most are not to be found. Once again, humanists would see us destroy our own culture to appease Islam. Let me tell you there is no appeasing Islam, only defeating Islam.

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Christine Gideon Ray Kosanke • Feb 2, 2017 at 16:23

My thoughts exactly - I almost didn't read the article after seeing AD's "wrong-headed" adjective describing the President's ban. And I thought he laid it on a little thick nearer to the end - but the analysis helped me get a clear picture of the situation. No point in letting his other opinions rob me of that.

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Eleonora Mostert • Feb 1, 2017 at 20:22

Obama put her in office and if as you said she made a mistake and doesn't know her job she shouldn't be in that position. Trump was right to fire her. Why didn't anyone complain in any area when Obama selected his staff? Trump has the right to appoint staff.

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Craig • Feb 1, 2017 at 20:18

You disagree with this executive order, but I cannot find your reasons.

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AF • Feb 1, 2017 at 20:17

What does anyone want to bet that she'll be a Democrat candidate for some office in the future? That she'll be speaking at Democrat rallies?

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Juanita Skelton • Feb 1, 2017 at 20:09

Thank you again, Mr. Dershowitz for clarity, as painful as it may have been for your personal dislike of this policy.I approach the bar of Judge Dershowitz' "court room" with great ignorance and trepidation but nonetheless, I do approach it. I do so with great deference, but with the hope that somehow a kind of logic might intercede on my behalf, and on behalf of the 49% of Americans who approve of this order of our nation's President.I know that the wisdom of this order may at first glance seem unwise. If it were NOT true that there have been numerous instances, brought to light, that show the ability of the cowards of Islam, the terrorists, to infiltrate European open borders alongside other undocumented, innocent, immigrants, seeking refuge, THEN I would accept any criticism of this order. If it were NOT true that we, Americans, are a freedom loving people prone to secular excesses which we ensconce in terms we call "The Bill of Rights", then I too would find myself at odds with the prudence behind this order. If it were NOT true that a type of co-opting has occurred in our most famous allied European Democracies, to the extent that Sharia Courts are being established over-confident, if not liquidating some very powerful etablished norms and democratic freedoms, then I too would find fault with this order.The fact is that in order to be comfortable with this order one must face down some very hard realities that we really don't care to believe could happen here in the bastion of democratic freedom, America. How can a noble student of American law NOT understand the very threat to our laws and freedoms terrorism has caused thus far? To NOT atleast "fumble" towards attempting to protect those freedoms, with the stroke of a pen, written onto the flimsy paper of faithfulness to principles which are so easily tossed to the ground under the weight of appeasement and political correctness, is courting disaster.I beg all Americans to choose to err on the side of caution and preventative measures, than to have to mourn any more innocent deaths from extremism.

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Scott • Feb 1, 2017 at 19:36

What about when 'O' placed a 6 month ban on Iraqi applicants back in 2011? What about last month when 'O' permanently banned Cuban refugees? I don't recall anyone screaming about the constutionality of either of those executive orders. I don't recall anyone protesting at airports, I don't recall any of the Hollywood monkeys standing up for the poor Cubans. I surely don't recall the attorney general refusing to support the president in the performance of his duties when it came to national security. The twit tried to play politics with national security, and lost. Tuff, don't let the door hit you on the way out.

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Jerry The Protestant Catholic Conservative • Feb 1, 2017 at 19:34

She needed to be terminated. She asked for it. Another "holdover" thinking she, and her Liberal views, are higher in authority than the President whom is also her boss.

She could have simply asked for clarification while pointing out flaws that Trump later corrected. But no, she went the No Guts No Glory route and lost big. She deserved to be fired. Time we erased the legacy, the mind set, which perverts Washington DC and state capitols. Obama was worse than Carter. Hillary would have introduced a global currency and brought about a Constitutional Convention. If she had a Democrat-Liberal controlled congress she would have requested ratification of the UN Charter on guns too. Good bye USA, good bye Canada, Great Britain, Australia, New Zealand, and Israel. God saved all.

Yates did get one thing though. All the publicity she wanted. I'm sure some Ivy League or CA university will make room for at double or triple her former salary. Democrats & Liberals must now work 3x as hard to program the next generations.

The media will do its part too; demonizing Trump while ignoring the horrors Obama created.

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Ariel • Feb 1, 2017 at 19:29

The President's job is to protect the citizens of the US from harm. If a public servant does agree with this, she is not doing her job and she should be asked to leave her position. President Trump made the right decision.

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Mel • Feb 1, 2017 at 19:28

She is wrong! If she disagrees she should resign ! Any one who disagrees with a new boss should either discuss it in private or resign!

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Marty • Feb 1, 2017 at 19:18

Walk into you boss's office tomorrow and tell him you're not going to do what he ordered and that you told your subordinates to ignore it as well. See where it gets you.

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Jeffrey Kane • Feb 1, 2017 at 19:13

Dershowitz' mental decline is becoming ever more apparent with each new opinion he expresses. Here he absolves her of being a villain, of lacking any malevolent intent against Trump, while observing that "...she instructed the entire Justice Department not to defend President Trump's wrong-headed[sic] executive order on immigration. The reasons she gave in her letter referred to matters beyond the scope of the attorney general. She criticized the order on policy grounds and said that it was not 'right.'" He characterizes these actions as "an honest mistake." This is analogous to James Comey's list a bill of indictable particulars against Hillary Clinton and then concluding there were no grounds to bring charges against her. Of course Yates was politically motivated to subvert Trump's authority in direct violation of her responsibility. An "honest mistake" is unintentional. This was entirely intentional, and her legal career should come to an end immediately. I encourage rational people everywhere to pay no further attention to Dershowitz' opinions. Not only is his reasoning faulty; he is obviously thoroughly biased against Trump himself.

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Bob Blackthorne • Feb 1, 2017 at 19:11

Answer: NEITHER. Merely just ANOTHER brain-dead Liberal with Nirvana images wafting in her head with the hundreds of thousands of Muslim terrorists being flooded into the country. What could possible go wrong? They're SUCH sweet, loving people, right? Yeah, don't worry about all the photos posted of dozens of headless bodies on the ground were obviously PhotoShopped by anti-immigrant sickos. Oh? Stop. What? The VIDEOS of ISIS systematically cutting captives' heads off were taken as it was being done, then posted on their Websites! Uh oh......

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Donna Bethell • Feb 1, 2017 at 19:09

I generally agree with Prof. Dershowitz, except when he says that acting AG Yates was fired for a policy difference. That is incorrect. She was fired because she directed her subordinates in the DOJ not to enforce or defend the President's Executive Order. This is rank insubordination. She could have protested privately to the President and, if they could not reach an agreement, then resign and explain her reasons. Instead she tried to override the President's authority. He had no choice but to fire her.

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Sandra Girardau • Feb 1, 2017 at 18:41

In my humble opinion, Mr. Trump was right to fire her. Mr. Trump was elected to do what is best for the US. He was elected by the people and his mandate was clear as to what he intended to do.

Like Mr. Trump or not, and I personally am not that keen on him, however he is following through on his promises unlike many politicians. He needs a chance, Obama had 8 years and failed miserably.

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SteveHC • Feb 1, 2017 at 18:29

Sally Yates was neither a "hero" NOR a "villain." Actually, she simply did her job. And she was going to be replaced by Trump ANYWAY; her publicized statement(s) merely hastened his appointment of her successor.

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Phllip A Nagle • Feb 1, 2017 at 18:08

Sally Yates as acting AG was supposed help create a smooth transition between administrations. Instead she showed herself to be little more than a political hack trying to undermine the Trump administration. Let this be a warning to Mr. Trump. the Obama holdovers are not to be trusted and should be fired quickly.

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Carroll Nigg • Feb 1, 2017 at 18:05

You have to be kidding if you honestly believe that any of these folks consider themselves servants. They are elitists who get up every day and march to their ideological calling.

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Maretta Rees • Feb 1, 2017 at 17:47

She is most definitely not a hero at all. Whether she liked it or not she was now part of a different Government, one which she knew she would not stay in when things were more settled, and as such she should have obeyed the command of the President whether she liked him, or his policies, or not. She was actually very rude when she took it upon herself to correct the President. She was grand-standing making a gesture which would cause publicity and make people feel that she had done it from principle.

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Albert Reingewirtz • Feb 1, 2017 at 17:45

Dershowitz is for letting in anyone from countries infested with Islamic terror: "I, too, disagree, with the policy underlying the order..." The order to not let anyone from those countries infested with Islamic terror for the next 3 months. To this Dershowitz disagrees! Wow!

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Rob Manzoni • Feb 1, 2017 at 17:40

Who knows who actually wrote the memo...?

I agree that the word "betrayed" seems inappropriate, but she was also out of line writing the memo ordering the federal employees NOT to comply with the presidential decree. This was not within her power.

Disagreeing with Trump's order is one thing (her appointment interview made her honest stance quite clear), but the correct action would have been to resign, AFTER confronting the White House with her crisis of conscience; and being rebuffed.

Writing an order countermanding the presidential order was an act of defiance - even betrayal - of her position.

This whole "spontaneous" outrage and protest on such a wide scale is a clear sign of some form of central, anti-American plan by sinister forces on the "Left".

THIS - like Ms Yates' countermand of Trump's order - is the true betrayal of the country; and follows eight years of betrayal at the highest level - a truth which has yet to hit home at Real America.

The president and State Department will be shown in the near future, to have been following an agenda which future generations of honest philosophers and historians, will describe as the most outrageous anti-democratic movement in the history of the Land Of The Free...

There's a strong possibility - the probability, I believe - that Obama, both Clintons and many on the so-called "Left" will be called to answer for their deeds; and hopefully will be incarcerated, when the truth of their intentions becomes clear to the world.

This includes the Media, most of which have displayed a conscious dishonest bias, which amounts to a deliberate conspiracy against the Truth; and for which they should be made to pay in the most severe manner. The courts must investigate- and prosecute ALL instances of deliberate untruth, by those who have abused their power to persuade a largely-ignorant, trusting public...

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Bill • Feb 1, 2017 at 17:11

Sally Yates is a political hack trying to grandstand and show her leftist stance.

Dr. Shakil Afridi, a Pakistani physician who helped the U.S. locate Osama bin Laden, has been in jail in Pakistan since he was arrested days after the raid on bin Laden's compound in 2011. In 2013, he was granted a retrial, with a new charge that appears politically motivated: charged with murder in regard to the death, eight years earlier, of a patient he had treated. Afridi has gone on a hunger strike protest his unspeakable prison conditions -- including torture. His former lawyer, Samiullah Khan Afridi, was murdered by the Taliban in March 2015. The Obama Administration appears to have abandoned him.